My Beginning

I first became acquainted, or was introduced, to Direct Response Marketing over 60 years ago when I was 10 or 11 years old. I saw an ad in the back of a comic book. It showed a cartoon of a skinny guy sitting on the beach with his girlfriend. A muscular bully came by and kicked sand in his face. Then the muscular bully walked away with his girlfriend. The skinny guy decided he would no longer be a 90lb weakling. He built a muscular body for himself and got his girlfriend back The ad said if I sent him ten cents (to cover the postage) he would send me a free report that would show me how I could do the same thing.

There wasn’t any Internet back then so I had to mail my dime to him. In a couple of weeks I actually received my “free report”; it was a four pages sales letter from Charles Atlas. He included a return envelope already addressed to him. I was supposed to send him some money, I forget how much, and he would send me the information. Well I didn’t have the money and remained a skinny little kid. But I did become fascinated by the process. I now know the process is called Direct Response Marketing.

Direct Response Marketing is different from normal advertising and marketing which is just designed to brand a company name into the minds of the reader or viewer. DRM is designed to motivate the reader or viewer to respond by taking some sort of action. In my case it was to mail Charles Atlas a dime. The desired response from a Direct Response Marketing campaign may be to “Fill out a form”, “Call Now” Subscribe to a Newsletter’ of make a purchase.

The desired result of a Direct Response Marketing may not be to make a sale. Usually it is to generate a lead. In this, case compile a list of people who want to build muscles. This campaign could have offered to to sell the product in the ad. But the response would have produced a much lower response. Not every one who read the cartoon ad wanted to build muscles – but every on who responded did. That means a list of qualified prospects!

They could have offered the “Free Report” without asking for the ten cents. However, the people who sent in their dime are more likely to make a purchase, It is a more qualified lead. Today, with the Internet, asking for a small amount first the seller gets the credit card information so when future purchases are made the buyer won’t to have re-enter their cc information.

What I actually did to start my Internet Marketing Business was to register a domain name.

That was about 20 years ago and there was only one domain registrar and the cost was $35 a year and you had to pay two years in advance ($70).

The cost today is about $15 a year and there are many domain registrars.

If you want to create an Online Income, I strongly suggest that you too register your own domain name. Think about what you want your domain to be, Ideally, it should be clear what your site is about!

In my next post I will show you all the tools you will need to get started with an online business.